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Yes, that was Erin Matson at Yankee Stadium.
Carolina’s Superwoman may not leap tall buildings in a single bound, but she definitely moves around fast. From the practice field at Karen Shelton Stadium to a box seat at the World Series, where her boyfriend Ben Casparius is pitching for the Dodgers.
Matson, in case you’ve just dropped in from five years on Mars, is Carolina’s all-everything field hockey coach who won four NCAA championships as a player and, in her first year at the helm, won her fifth natty. Her current team is ranked No. 2 in the country at 14-0.
Flash back five years, Matson was a sophomore for her undefeated Tar Heels and celebrating on Franklin Street after one of Carolina’s historic hoop wins over Duke (maybe the February 20 upset of the top-ranked Blue Devils in Cameron), riding on the shoulders of a young man who turned out to be Casparius, a pitcher/infielder for Mike Fox’s team who had just started dating Matson but eventually transferred to UConn in his home state.
“We’ve been doing long distance for almost six years now,” Matson told the Los Angeles Times this week. “I don’t know what’s quite wrong with us.”
During the FOX Sports telecast of the National League championship series, announcer Joe Davis called Matson “the Michael Jordan of field hockey.”
Matson, probably blushing, said, “Around Carolina, that’s pretty normal. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.”
After her fourth national championship, UNC recreated the picture of Jordan after his fourth NBA title with the Bulls, Matson holding up four fingers with a victory cigar in her mouth, captioned by the school, “Just GOAT things.”
Tar Heel legend and now the new head coach of @UNCFieldHockey: Erin Matson ???? ???? pic.twitter.com/IkfcCcym5D
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) January 31, 2023
The LA Times reported things we all have known for years, such as, according to Casparius, “Whenever we go to a basketball game, she’s on the big screen at least a couple of times.”
And after graduating in 2022, Matson was UNC’s 2024 commencement speaker. Of landing the head coaching job right after her last season as a player, Casparius said, “She proved she could bring together a group of girls who at the time at least 75 percent of them had been her teammates. . . .an interesting situation when you’re able to gain that respect. She did it. She crushed it.”
Casparius was a fifth-round draft choice of the Dodgers in 2021 and played on every level of pro baseball before being called up by the Dodgers this season despite never having played a spring training game for them. He started Game 4 of the Series, giving up one hit in two innings of a “bullpen game” that the Yankees eventually won 11-4.
With the Dodgers wrapping up the Series Wednesday night, look for Casparius back in Chapel Hill to watch Matson’s team play at Duke Friday night.
Featured image via Matt Clements
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
